Richard Zhu is the Head Translator for the simplified Chinese translation of The Urantia Book, and we recently interviewed him for the Journal to learn about this ambitious undertaking. The effort has been in progress for nearly a decade, and an online version was made available earlier this year to allow public review of the translation––and to begin spreading these teachings to a Chinese-reading audience.
RICHARD JERNIGAN:
So first of all, tell us about your upbringing and your religious background. Were you raised in a religious household?
RICHARD ZHU:
Actually, my parents have no religious background. They’re just ordinary people. I think they have no beliefs in Christianity or Buddhism or any other religions, but they have a high level of education, and they regard education as a very important way to expand personal awareness and growth. I think that’s why they gave me very strong support when I planned to study abroad. And without their support, I probably would not have found The Urantia Book and translated it into Chinese.
RJ: And we’ll certainly get to that in a little bit. So, when and how did you discover The Urantia Book?
RZ: It’s quite an interesting story. I mean, it’s like something was planned for me. I didn’t know it initially, but I think something happened in 2008. There was a financial crisis globally, and after that I just felt a strong pressure from the outside environment. Those pressures affected my life a lot. I started to think about the meaning of life, and to explore and seek truth. And during this process I felt I was guided. I think later I realized that this was my Thought Adjuster, reminding me. So I began to conduct some in-depth exploration online, thinking about many life issues and searching a lot of content. What’s incredible is that my exploration covered a range of topics like cosmology and religion, and other areas like science and philosophy.
But in my explorations were some signposts on the road to discover a treasure. I think The Urantia Book is a treasure. So every step was just leading me to the place where the treasure was hidden, and I found The Urantia Book as a last step. After reading it, I just firmly believed that this really is a book of truth that can answer all of my confusions about life. So I have a strong desire to share the content of this book with other Chinese people. I read many online materials, including different religion books and religious materials. Interestingly, they were just like steppingstones to build my foundation for The Urantia Book translation. And I think The Urantia Book is the final steppingstone appearing in front of me. It was a step-by-step exploration.
RJ: What were some of the specific things that you read? What philosophies or religions did you investigate?
RZ: I investigated Buddhism, Christianity and others, but these two are the main religions I explored. I also explored some other spiritual books such as A Course in Miracles and Conversations with God. Also, I had some background with Chinese traditional religions: Confucianism, Taoism, and also from India, some Hinduism, I read a little bit of that. As I mentioned, I had no religious background, but during my education I was very interested in Buddhism and Taoism. So from high school through university I just kept reading Buddhism books and some philosophy.
RJ: And when did you find The Urantia Book?
RZ: I think it was around 2009.
RJ: So what was it about The Urantia Book that really resonated with you? What indicated to you that this was a revealed text?
RZ: When I read the book, I felt it explained the truth in a very accurate and extensive way. I couldn’t find some discrepancy or even any discrepancy within it. So from that point, I just realized that no human beings could produce this book.
RJ: So how have the teachings of The Urantia Book changed your life?
RZ: I think this book changed my life dramatically. Just like when I just read through this book, I found the teachings profound––just very profound truth. The teachings of this book inspired me quite a lot and inspired me to share this revelation with more of my fellow brothers and sisters. So I contacted the Foundation to ask if I could help with the Chinese translation work. And when I was commissioned to do the translation work, the teachings of the book supported me through many challenges in my life both when dealing with translation work and with daily life.
RJ: I think it’s really interesting that you found this text and you went straight toward wanting to translate it. Were there any other Urantia Book-related projects before that?
RZ: Before I worked on the Chinese translation, I joined a local association, Urantia Association of UK and Ireland, and attended many study groups and summer meetings. I felt the brotherhood between everyone and helped organize meetings and gave presentations. But due to the busy translation work later, I gradually had less time to get involved with local study groups and summer meetings. But I have been very grateful for their support during all these years. The study groups gave me information and details about this book in more depth. And that gave me more foundation to do the translation work.
RJ: Can you talk about the study groups you’ve been involved with?
RZ: There is one study group in Reading near London. There are many people there, but the main organizers are Chris and Tina Mosely. They’ve hosted that study group for many years. I studied with them every weekend, and they had a very good atmosphere there. They treated us very kindly and provided tea and biscuits before the study group, then we would have a good chat and share all the teachings together. It was a very beautiful experience when I studied with them.
RJ: So you approached Urantia Foundation about translating the book. Did you lead this effort and how did they receive your offer?
RZ: It took around two years for me to go through this process with the Foundation. Initially I contacted George DuPont to ask whether they need some support for Chinese translation work. They said yes, that they were looking for someone to help with the translation and I was contacting them on time. They had a draft translation, but when they asked people to review that translation it seemed that the quality wasn’t good enough to be published. They needed some people to correct those translation errors and mistakes, and then to improve the quality of the translation. I discussed with George the problems and the things I needed to do to help to improve the quality of that translation, and because I have a simplified Chinese background, they asked me to lead the effort to make this translation better.
RJ: The translation they already had, was it simplified or traditional Chinese?
RZ: Simplified, yeah.
RJ: I know that George has quite rigorous standards for translation teams. What were some of the standards that were required?
RZ: Yeah, they have very high standards. Before I did the work, they needed to review my background, check my English level, my education background, and if I had experience with translation from English to Chinese. Then they considered my ability to do this work.
RJ: In April 2016, you spoke at Urantia Foundation and described that there are many ways of speaking Chinese, but all Chinese readers read the same text. Can you talk a little bit about this? And what does that mean for the Chinese translation?
RZ: Yes. There are many dialects in China, and that means that there are many local oral languages in different areas, but only two written Chinese languages. One is simplified, the other is traditional. Simplified written Chinese is widely used in mainland China, and the traditional written Chinese is more used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other areas. That means that there will be two versions of Chinese translation to satisfy the Chinese readers from different areas.
RJ: Did you organize a team, or did the Foundation already have a team for you to use?
RZ: Well, it was a long-term task. Initially my role was doing the translation by myself, because at that time the Foundation couldn’t find other people to help me. This book is so in-depth and so profound, no other Chinese readers or other high-level translators could help me with this. So I initially just did this myself to produce a high quality, simplified Chinese version to help more Chinese people understand this revelation. But bit by bit the Foundation asked me to find more people to get involved, mainly just to initially help me with the simplified Chinese translation, but later to also find people from a traditional Chinese background to get a proper Chinese traditional version. So there were two sides to this. One side was just for me to focus on the simplified Chinese version, but later, bit by bit, they asked me to find other good team members to join and support me in both traditional and simplified translations.
RJ: Tell us about the team you had for the project.
RZ: I found a very good spiritual teacher from Taiwan, Vicki Yang, who had spent more than 30 years translating spiritual books from English to Chinese. She has a very good reputation in China––in mainland and Taiwan. I invited her to support me in the translation work, and she accepted. She also brought in her students to help me with the translation work. She mainly helped me with the traditional Chinese because her background is with traditional Chinese. She helped me with traditional translation for several years, and now she’s still helping me to edit that traditional Chinese version because traditional Chinese isn’t my native language. I needed her support to do the corrections and edits, then I could closely match the traditional Chinese words with simplified Chinese.
RJ: Who else was on the team other than Vicki? You mentioned her students.
RZ: Angie, Liz, and Jane were background support. Mainly, they read through the text and provided some suggestions. And there were many more. They were just like a reader group––a reader group of more than 20 people. Some came from a simplified Chinese background, others from a traditional Chinese background. They provided some feedback, and I added to it based on their comments.
RJ: But though the first version was simplified Chinese, it sounds like you were working on both at the same time. Is that correct?
RZ: Initially I was working on Simplified Chinese. I was almost finished, but I found those people and then I got them involved. Only recently I asked them to support the traditional Chinese, so the traditional Chinese came a bit later, and couldn’t be published at the same time with the simplified Chinese version. We still need some edits and more time to do corrections.
RJ: So I never really asked you what simplified Chinese is versus traditional Chinese. Can you give us a little understanding of what the two are?
RZ: Yes. My background is simplified Chinese. Simplified Chinese is mainly used in mainland China. The word simplify means some of the Chinese characters have been modified to be easier to read and understand. Before the 1950s, the Chinese characters were more complex and difficult to read and to teach. So from the 1950s, the Chinese government and the Chinese education institutions wanted to get more people to be literate. They made the Chinese characters more simplified and easier for students to read and to learn. So from the 1950’s till now, the simplified Chinese has been widely used in mainland China. But Hong Kong and Taiwan and some other areas use traditional Chinese. I think they prefer to use that version because they want to keep some tradition from China, from Chinese culture. That’s the reason why we need two versions for the Chinese translation. For the simplified Chinese, the readership probably will be around 1.4 billion people, but for traditional Chinese, the readership will be at most 30 or 40 million people. For the simplified Chinese translation, one in six people on earth can read it. So that’s the main target. Simplified Chinese is quite important for most Chinese people.
RJ: Does the traditional Chinese allow more depth? Because The Urantia Book is so complex, does it allow for more of the nuance of the book?
RZ: Actually, it doesn’t. From what I understand, the traditional Chinese and the simplified Chinese, they represent the same meanings, but only the structure of the characters are different. Simplified Chinese is just easier to read. Traditional Chinese is a bit difficult to read because the characters are so dense. Simplified Chinese is less dense. When you read a paragraph from the simplified Chinese version, it’s easier to read. But for the Traditional Chinese version, it might take a bit more time reading the characters through one paragraph.
RJ: So just what were some of the challenges of doing a translation like this with the text already so complex?
RZ: The main challenge is the Chinese written language is based on characters, not letters. The Chinese characters are more abstract, and we can’t just use letters to represent everything. So, for this translation, it’s more difficult because some concepts in the book are not in an English dictionary. The revelators created some English terms by themselves. So that’s more challenging because I have to consider their ideas and use a similar creative process. For example, “absonite” combines “absolute” and “finite.” That’s the kind of thinking I have to follow. The revelators had to use that kind of thinking. And other concepts such as “morontia” had to be created as a Chinese concept, very brand new. So that was challenging for me, just to spend so much time thinking about how to create some Chinese concepts to reflect English concepts.
Sometimes people, especially beginning readers, when they read through the book, they’re just so confused. For instance, there are so many concepts to represent the Thought Adjuster. Sometimes a new reader won’t pick up that the other terms just refer to the same concept. So that’s why during the translation process, I had to go back every time to double check whether they represent the same concept. And I referred to some previous religious documents. In Buddhism or religious texts, “justice” can be used to refer to different concepts. So that’s quite extensive. I mean, this concept “justice” can be found in many religions, but using different terms.
RJ: What new insights did you get by going so deeply into this book and translating it into Chinese?
RZ: I think for me, I found that understanding of the concepts very clearly and accurately is very crucial to deeply understand the whole book. And especially from my translation work, I had to differentiate many tiny differences between synonyms. So once these challenges were conquered, I grasped the meanings of synonyms and the paragraphs.
RJ: I was just reading this morning about Trinity and Triunity, and Triodity. What do you do with something like that?
RZ: It’s quite difficult for me. I mean, those concepts didn’t appear before in Chinese. So I have to find the meaning and just to use proper Chinese concepts and characters to reflect those concepts. Very small, tiny differences, probably each concept or probably just one or two characters different, but similar to English, totally different. Even for the location names or names of celestial beings, these are quite new, so I have to create a new concept to represent those names and locations.
RJ: Like Nebadon. Orvonton.
RZ: Yeah, so those are quite new.
RJ: But then there’s a word like Paradise.
RZ: That’s common in English, but it’s common in Chinese.
RJ: So you’ve got the simplified Chinese published, is it coming out in hardback?
RZ: Currently, this version is just published online for readers to comment and to give some feedback. So this version will need further improvements. But I can say during this process, I’ll take some time for readers to go through and give some good feedback, and then I can compile the feedback and improve that version.
RJ: It sounds like you’re still in an editorial process with it, even though it’s finished and it can be shared widely.
RZ: Quite true. I mean, for the print version, it will need some more efforts. I think Urantia Foundation has a very complete plan. Normally they say for a very good translation, it takes around 30 years to produce a good version. So for me, I’m just halfway through (laughs) and halfway through to do a better version and to get it printed. So hopefully in the next few years time, I will receive more comments. I just keep on working, improving the current version.
RJ: Are you beginning to promote this translation?
RZ: Yes, I helped Urantia Foundation get the online version set up, and then I introduced it to more Chinese people from my friends and other groups. Some spiritual groups can do a search online to get some information about this book. Then they can read through and can benefit from that.
RJ: Will The Urantia Book be controversial in mainland China?
RZ: I don’t recognize this as such. I understand this book mainly regards some cosmic truths and other things. It’s a more spiritual book and covers different areas. So it’s not like some previous religious groups that governments are so sensitive to. I think this book is just mainly for individual readers to read. It doesn’t require organizations or groups. So that’s why I don’t think it will affect the government’s understanding about this book––they’ll just treat it as normal book for people to read. It won’t be like some very religious books for people to gather together and have more physical activities. I think this book is for people to read online, they can digest it themselves rather than together in social activities. So I would say it’s not that controversial.
RJ: And what about Taiwan and other Chinese-speaking nations? What reactions do you anticipate?
RZ: I think they are quite happy to receive this book. The people are quite spiritual. They already read a lot of spiritual books. For this book, they also understand its importance. This is the revelation. They like to share this book with friends or around communities. So I think in Taiwan, this book is more easy to spread out. But in mainland China still, it would take some time because they need to read through this book for some time. Then they can understand the importance of this book.
RJ: This is how the English version got spread, word of mouth. Or for some people they found it in a bookstore or library, but it was very low key. And it sounds like right now that’s pretty much where you are with it.
RZ: I think we have many ways to share it. One way is just produce electronic versions, it’s much easier to spread. As you mentioned, it’s just mainly by word of mouth. So if people say, well, have you read this book, they can say, well, can you give me the PDF? Or can you send me a link to read? Or can you send me some information? Where can I find the app to read this book? So it will be easier for people to get some app or get some PDF version or some other version they can share. It’s very quick. Nowadays it’s much easier for people to share.
RJ: No question the online world is such a game changer. About how many people do you think have been given this Chinese text? What’s your estimate of the numbers right now?
RZ: I think currently there are more than 1000 Chinese readers who have read this book and who have downloaded this book. So it’s mainly by word of mouth and people sharing. Because I had a reader group with more than 20 people, when they read this book, they benefited quite a lot and they shared with other people and then those people shared a bit more. So yeah, it expanded very quickly.
RJ: So you think about a thousand so far.
RZ: More than 1000. Yeah.
RJ: So Richard, what has this project meant to you personally?
RZ: I would say this project is probably a lifelong mission. I understand when I did the translation work from my heart, I say, I would do this for the long term. For me, it’s quite meaningful and just quite an important mission. So it’s just like doing Father’s will and I want to share this book and share the teaching of this revelation with more Chinese brothers and sisters. So yeah, I will spend more time doing this and just help more people to benefit from this book.
RJ: One thing that’s certainly unusual about The Urantia Book, is it’s similar to Christianity in that we have the figure of Jesus in it. And so for a person like me who grew up with Christianity, it was just remarkable to read this. And it was very, very inspiring to have this bigger picture of Jesus. But I think for some people who didn’t grow up with that, what’s the response to the person of Jesus, of Michael?
RZ: Yeah, I’ll say even for me, I didn’t have a Christian background before, and I think from this book, the stories of Jesus are more profound and just quite in-depth. I think that stories from the Bible cover very small details of Jesus’ life. But with this book it is just quite profound to show Jesus’ life in very detailed experiences. That’s why that, even when I asked Chinese readers when they read through the Jesus experience and Jesus’ life, sometimes they just fell into tears. They were so moved by the words or the experiences of Jesus, and they benefited quite a lot from Jesus’ teachings. So that’s why I find this book is quite unique, to show different pictures of Jesus, quite different from the Bible or from other Christianity books.
RJ: Yeah, that’s one thing that The Urantia Book alludes to, that by the time the Christian missionaries got to China, the Chinese just thought this was a strange religion for strangers. Do you think The Urantia Book is helping circumvent that perception?
RZ: Yeah, definitely. I think definitely because the readers I have contacted, they’re university professors or some students from different backgrounds, so they have no Christianity background. When they read this part of the book, they resonate with the stories and the teachings of Jesus. So that’s why I think it’s quite profound because before, some people in China, they didn’t regard Jesus as important. A religious leader, but not a leader that can affect many people.
RJ: The book speaks highly of Chinese civilization. What’s your take on how people respond to what it says about China, because it’s highly admired in The Urantia Book?
RZ: I went to Taiwan this March to promote my translation, and I used quotes from the book showing the Chinese culture from the beginning until now, summarizing all the highlights from the Chinese culture to show the audience. They were touched very deeply, because I think they feel quite proud of Chinese culture. And they recognize that this book shows that. And when they listened and I gave some explanations, they were so impressed. I think the main things that this book points out in the Chinese sections is something quite good, something excellent. And some things still need to improve and some things are not quite right. So when I showed these teachings to those audiences, to those readers, they could receive wisdom from this book and say, “Wow, that’s quite powerful.” Chinese culture still needs some improvements––not to just stay in the past, to follow past teachings. We have to get some new teachings to feed into our culture and to try to be innovative and creative, rather than just try to keep the old. I think that’s how they received this message.
RJ: That’s wonderful. It seems with the book’s description of European civilization, there are things that we can be proud of, and things we know we got wrong. Well, I really appreciate your time, Richard. This is personally fascinating for me, and I’m really glad you offered to let me interview you.
RZ: Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you and also thanks to Urantia Association. I have received a study group guide from Urantia Association International which I translated into Chinese and spread to the Chinese readers. So that will guide readers to form some study groups locally. I want to show my gratitude to the Association. And thank you so much for your interview.